August 2024
With the compounding crises of unrest and flooding in Bangladesh, we know that many are looking to understand which production locations are affected and how you can find and work with other stakeholders on response efforts. This resource includes pre-drawn OS Hub searches of the flooded areas, as well as additional resources, guides, and background to assist in your work.
General Resources
If you are new to OS Hub and/or a company following recommendations for responsible business conduct as these situations evolve, here are some general ways you can use/search OS Hub to identify affected suppliers, find collaborators for collective action work, and more.
Pre-Drawn Searches
We have also set up the following specific pre-drawn searches for anyone to make use of:
- Flood Areas: If you are looking to understand which facilities have been affected by flooding, here is a set of pre-drawn rough areas* where the flooding occurred and the production locations on OS Hub within them. You can find the full flood area here, as well as separate maps by district:
- Textile & Garment Sector Search: The textile and garment industry, which accounts for over 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s total export earnings and contributes approximately 11 per cent to the nation’s GDP, has been hit hard. When searching OS Hub, select "Bangladesh" as the country and then "Apparel, Footwear, and Textiles" under Sector. You can then search or deselect sub-sectors from there as relevant to your work.
- Facilities connected to Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives: Many factories closed or were forced to close in recent weeks, and with the peak season for “Christmas/holiday season” shipments and the booking of next season’s orders upon manufacturers, the timing of the unrest has exacerbated the crisis. If you are a multi-stakeholder initiative or looking to engage multi-stakeholder initiatives in guiding companies through responsible conduct around these closures and how they have affected workers, this MSI Contributor search shows which facilities are tied to at least one multi-stakeholder initiative.
- Bangladesh Textile Mills Association Facilities: The Bangladesh Textile Mills Association has projected losses of around USD 58 million. BTMA’s publicly available lists of members are available on OS Hub (please note that these are public datasets from previous year(s) that have been ingested into OS Hub and may not reflect the most up-to-date member lists).
- The impact on the industry is compounded by the recent flooding, which has further disrupted logistics and exacerbated the economic fallout. To narrow this search, we can show this area where BTMA member factories are affected by flooding.
*Flood areas were identified using locations from Flood Forecasting & Warning Centre and Google Flood Hub.
If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions about how to make use of this data to aid in response work, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team at info@opensupplyhub.org. Our hearts go out to the people of Bangladesh, and our deepest appreciation and gratitude to those who are supporting them.